Where There’s a Jill, There’s a Way

A great team needs a great leader, and lucky for us, ‘great’ hardly scratches the surface. On our team, compasses don’t point north; they point towards Jill de Chavez, Managing Director of Briteweb.

Jill is a digital marketing expert who brings a wealth of knowledge, diverse skill-set, and dedicated leadership to her three children: two toddlers, and Briteweb.

To better understand who she is today, we’ll take you back to where her professional journey began, at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). Here, she studied Professional Sales and Marketing and got her first on-brand gig in the service industry. While she was exceptional at the job (obviously), Jill wasn’t loving the day-to-day. Or as she’d put it, “It wasn’t singing my song.”

Her courses at BCIT were intense–ten classes at once, eight exams in a week. It’s something most would happily move on from. But for Jill, she found that juggling everything at once was her vibe–and she was good at it. So naturally, she shifted into the world of Project Management.

Jill started her agency career on a humble team of five, where she quickly discovered her knack for numbers and running the show with deft efficiency. She found herself tracking profit margins, developing new processes, time tracking, and Asana-ing. As a natural next step, she found herself in a Director role. 

“It burnt me out, but I loved it,” Jill reminisces. “I learned so much and it forever shaped the trajectory of my career.”

As time went on, Jill had a new realization: if you’re working 40 hours a week, it should be work that brings you joy. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and her own health was affected by burn out, she discovered a new passion for health and nutrition. So she followed her interest, and took a sabbatical to enrol in nutrition school.

“I absolutely loved it. This is something we all need to know and I was so certain that I was going down the path of becoming a social media queen for nutrition.”

In a serendipitous turn of events, Jill’s queen-like qualities were diverted away from nutrition. She explains, “I created a website, and the first person to fill out a form was a CEO I had met while working at my previous agency.” This CEO was hoping her abundant skillset was on the menu. “I have the perfect job for you,” he said, “it’s in the PM world.” 

The offer was too good to turn down, and back into the agency world she went, this time in referral marketing. Here she spent a few years until the next job offer arrived: motherhood. 

When her daughter was born, Jill’s perspective began to change. “If I’m not at home with my kid,” she thought, “I want to be making an impact in the world.” She questioned whether she’d be able to achieve this as a project manager. “I thought it was impossible,” Jill recalls, “then I looked around and found Briteweb, and I was like, there’s no way.” 

Way, Jill. Way.

The role at Briteweb was a match made in heaven. She joined the team in 2019 and everything fell into place. “I finally found a place where I can use my superpowers in project management and do good in the world.”

Today, Jill leads Briteweb as Managing Director. She uses her operational strategy skills to help lead social change through our organization. She sees a future in which growth for Briteweb is approached with intentionality. Even as we expand our horizons, authenticity and efficiency will remain integral–and our North Star will always be making positive change in the world. 

When asked what her dream Briteweb project would be, she thinks of the opportunity to uplift women and girls. “Ever since I became a mom,” she says, “I’m very intentional about how I’m raising my daughter in a world where women aren’t necessarily equals. I think it would have to be a project about uplifting women and providing an opportunity for them to see their strength in business.”

In this chapter, Jill works hard to balance her life as a working mother. It’s a role that lends itself to constant self-improvement, motivated by passing her own lessons onto her children. She says being a mother makes you think about “being intentional about who you want to be in this world and how you want to show up.”

At Briteweb, we’re fortunate to benefit from these lessons as well. Having Jill means having a leader who guides us intentionally, passionately, and creatively. Her ambitions are infectious, and we’re lucky to have her leading the way.